Wing Night with Sweet Potato Fries

So my meal planning white board for today said Lamb Tikka Masala.  As you can probably guess from the title of this post, I didn't make Lamb Tikka Masala.  There are two reasons for this:

1.  I was pretty much a blob on the couch yesterday and didn't get around to thawing the lamb to marinate overnight.

2.  I realized when I looked at the lamb this morning (thinking maybe, maybe it could work) that it's not really enough lamb for 2 people.  So I'll have to get more lamb for that recipe!

Tonight I went with one of my easy standards.  Wings. 

I made regular wings and hot wings.  Jon's a hot wing fan, but the kids don't really like spicy food and I wasn't really up for the spice today.  Actually, making two types of wings doesn't really add very much to the preparation, but you'll see that in the recipe/instructions below. 

Another favorite side dish for tonight were our sweet potato fries.  I call them fries, but they're baked, so I suppose you could call them roasted sweet potato sticks if you really like being technical.  One great thing about making these two things together is that with my oven and the baking trays I happen to use for these recipes I can get the chicken and the fries in there at the same time and they both turn out well!.

(Sidenote:  If you ever want to see a cute kid stuff his face as fast as possible, just come over here when I make sweet potato fries.  I wish I had taken a video of Michael eating these things.  They're his favorite!  It's almost like he's trying to play chubby bunny with them.  Too bad he can't actually say, "Chubby bunny."  We'll have to try to teach him that next time.)

The wing recipe isn't anything fancy and I didn't really get it from anywhere.  I suppose it accumulated in my brain after watching and reading about all the different ways to make breaded chicken.  I may have gleaned something from the back of the Frank's red hot bottle about how to spice up regular chicken wings though.  So here you have it.  Val's version for oven breaded wings.


Wings!

Ingredients
1.5 pounds wings and drummettes
1 cup buttermilk (or 1tbsp lemon juice + milk to make 1 cup)
1 cup ground oats (magic bullet is great for this!)
1 cup oat bran cereal (Jon's breakfast pulverized by magic bullet)
1tbsp onion powder
2tsp garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
3tbsp butter
3 tbsp hot sauce (we like Frank's)

Method
1.  In a medium bown mix together oats, cereal, onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper.

2.  In another bowl combine wings and buttermilk.  Make sure the wings are well coated.

3.  Take each wing and dredge it in the oat mixture and lay on a baking sheet covered with foil.

4.  Bake wings in a 400 degree oven for 25 minutes.



I know, I should have used a larger pan tonight.  I underestimated the size of the wings.



5.  Melt the 3tbsp butter and after the wings have baked for 25 minutes drizzle them with 2tbsp butter.

6.  For hot wings mix 1tbsp melted butter and the hot sauce, stir well, then drizzle over wings. 



7.  Return wings to the oven for another 5 minutes.



These are how Jon's hot wings turned out.  I neglected to get a pretty picture of them on his plate!

Sweet Potato Fries (you can use yams too!)

Ingredients

2 large sweet potatoes cut into sticks (shaped like fries?  Ha ha!)

2tbsp oil

salt and pepper to taste

Method

1.  Toss sweet potatoes in oil and season with salt and pepper.

2.  Put the sweet potatoes in the oven with your chicken on a separate rack!  Try to make sure they're on opposite sides of the oven so the sweet potatoes aren't covered.  Or just bake at 400 for 25 minutes.

If you're baking your fries and the chicken wings at the same time make sure to check on the fries when your chicken wings are ready for their butter or hot sauce.  I wasn't so careful tonight and we ended up with a few blackened casualties.  It also helps if you cut your sweet potatoes in uniform shapes so that they all cook evenly.  I (as I think I have told you before) am not an expert at cutting things yet.  Good thing Jon likes the taste of burnt things.  How lucky am I?

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Dear Heavenly Father,

  thank you for the blessing of our children.  They bring such joy to our home and give us so many opportunities to grow in holiness.  Help us to see those opportunities and give us the grace to make use of them.  Amen.

UIOGD